Harassment

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT HARASSMENT - PAGE 5

Two Palatine residents accused in connection with a lengthy harassment campaign against Palatine police officers were found guilty Tuesday of violating their probation and jailed for 23 days. Calling each defendant "a liar and a harasser," Cook County Associate Judge Earl Hoffenberg ordered Lisa Willeumier, 22, and Tom Hartig, 24, taken into custody at the Rolling Meadows courthouse to immediately begin their sentences. Willeumier, an honors graduate from Bradley University, is a volunteer at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines and was recently accepted into the AmeriCorps national volunteer program.

Two Glendale Heights Village Board members are charging Village President Jeri Sullivan with political harassment and are asking for a public apology and payment of legal fees spent to defend themselves against a complaint filed by her husband, James Sullivan. James Sullivan filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections in August charging that board members Michael DeLonay and Phillip Cassata spent more money than is allowed and did not make proper disclosure of where the funds came from in their political campaigns in 1987.

A former office manager at the DuPage County public defender's office charged Tuesday in a federal lawsuit in Chicago that she was fired in 1992 after she complained of persistent, unwelcome sexual advances by a lawyer in the office. Faye McDonald, who worked in the office from 1985 until her dismissal in September 1992, is seeking $40 million in damages. She also is seeking back pay and to be reinstated. The suit alleged that an assistant public defender still with the office repeatedly pinched and improperly touched McDonald at work between January and July 1992.

A 52-year-old policewoman filed suit against the Chicago Police Department Wednesday contending that she was sexually harassed by her partner and superiors shortly after she became the only woman in a South Side investigative unit. In the suit filed in U.S. District Court, officer Kathleen Wagner charged that she encountered sexual harassment "from the outset" of her being assigned to the Wentworth Area property-crimes unit in January, 1984. Wagner, a 20-year veteran, was only the second woman officer to become a detective when she was promoted in May, 1973.

Six Iranian scholars invited to a conference at Georgetown University in Washington have canceled their participation, saying they were harassed and humiliated by immigration officials on arriving at Kennedy International Airport, the organizer of the event said Friday. The organizer, John Esposito, director of the Center of Muslim-Christian Understanding at the university, said the Iranians described being fingerprinted and then ridiculed by officials who detained them at the airport for several hours on Wednesday.

A Chicago State University faculty member who sued the university charging a supervisor had sexually harassed her was awarded $200,000 Tuesday. A jury in the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel deliberated 4 1/2 hours before finding in favor of professor Emily Bryson, according to her attorneys James P. Nally and Cheryl Alesia. Nally said Bryson was a tenured professor who had been special assistant to the dean in the library and had done extensive university committee work.

United Airlines said Thursday it has suspended a baggage-handler supervisor at O'Hare International Airport without pay while the company investigates allegations that he harassed several male employees he oversaw. "We began our investigation within hours of it being reported to us," United spokesman John Hopkins said, adding that the incident was first reported Sept. 1. "We take this very seriously." Hopkins confirmed that at least three employees who brought the charges are being allowed to stay home with full pay and benefits.

As it prepares to make Chicago its North American headquarters, the German-based ThyssenKrupp manufacturing company is facing allegations that Chicago area supervisors created a hostile and intimidating work environment for an African-American employee. A superintendent at ThyssenKrupp used the N-word "routinely" around African-American sales representative Montrelle Reese, according to a November finding by the state Department of Human Rights. Another supervisor applied brown makeup to his face to make his skin tone darker during a skit at a sales conference in Indianapolis, according to the report, which concluded that there was "substantial evidence" that Reese, who worked in the Westchester office, was harassed because of his race.

Bills safety Donte Whitner faces a harassment charge after an alleged domestic dispute with his girlfriend. Whitner was arrested in the Buffalo suburb of Hamburg after police were called to his home in response to a fight with a woman, police said. He was released on his own recognizance.

A lawsuit charging the Chicago Transit Authority and two of its executives with libel, slander and harassment of a former maintenance employee was filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, said Kenneth Ditkowsky, an attorney representing the retired worker. Ditkowsky said he has a letter from one CTA executive written to another executive that suggests harassment and portrays his client, George Dimitsas, in a derogatory manner. Dimitsas, a persistent CTA critic, resigned from his job at the CTA's maintenance yards in Skokie last year, Ditkowsky said.